This invention relates to a tread formed on a vehicle tire or anti-skid armor adapted to be secured around a vehicle tire.
This invention also relates to anti-skid armor which enables a safe drive on normal roads as well as under adverse conditions wherein a drive with normally equipped tires would be difficult, particularly on snow, mud, sand and gravel.
Tire chains, studded or spike tires, and snow tires have been used for traveling on snow and ice for anti-skidding purposes, although they have various drawbacks.
On normal paved roads, tire chains cause a high noise level and do not provide a comfortable ride. Further chains are susceptible to becoming disengaged and breaking.
Therefore, the tire chains can be employed only in low-speed driving for a short distance.
Tire chains also require considerable labor to cope with changing road conditions; that is, tire chains should be put on and taken off every time when snow or bare pavement is encountered on a road.
Studded tires can be used on normal roads although they have a defect that the studs embedded therein cause serious damage to the pavement and consequent dust pollution.
Snow tires run on both snow and normal roads, although their anti-skid effect is not comparable to that of studded tires. Particularly, their poor ice and packed snow traction results in a longer breaking distance causing safety problems.
Recently, tire chains have often been replaced by rubber and resin nets adapted to be secured over the tire treads. These nets induce neither violent vibration nor noise during travel on normal roads although they are inherently susceptible to breakage. For example, a passenger car having anti-skid nets of a synthetic rubber mounted on its driving wheels can travel only 50 to 80 kilometers on asphalt pavement, at an average speed of 40 kilometers per hour.